BERGISCH GLADBACH, 12. December 2016

Miltenyi Biotec has expanded its antibody portfolio and now offers more than 500 new recombinantly engineered antibodies – the REAfinity™ Antibodies optimized for flow cytometry. These antibodies display considerable advantages over conventional monoclonal antibodies and their introduction thereby contributes significantly to the standardization of antibodies in research.

Recently, there has been an intense discussion on the reproducibility of experiments in the scientific community. Being part of the scientific community, Miltenyi Biotec takes this topic very seriously. With the recombinantly engineered REAfinity™ Antibodies, optimized for flow cytometry, the company makes a significant contribution to improving quality and consistency of experimental results. The strictly standardized antibody production process starting from a defined DNA sequence ensures high purity and lot-to-lot consistency. In addition, these recombinant antibodies do not display any undesired mixtures of heavy and light immunoglobulin chains, which is often the case with conventional monoclonal antibodies. These advantages make REAfinity™ Antibodies the ideal tool for improving experimental reproducibility.

“Our REAfinity™ Antibodies are the new generation of flow cytometry antibodies”, explains Dr. Kalpana Singh, product manager for the MACS® Antibody portfolio at Miltenyi Biotec. “For researchers this means easy access to the benefits of recombinant antibody technology. Until now, the advantages of this technology were not readily available to every scientist and only researchers in pharma companies could benefit from this technology.

Another important topic to us is the validation of antibodies, this is why we are in constant dialog with scientists across the globe to help raising the standards in antibody validation.”

Optimized for flow cytometry by eliminating background signaling

Certain site-specific mutations are introduced into REAfinity™ Antibodies to eliminate non-specific binding of antibodies to Fc receptors, thereby avoiding background signals. The result: specific and accurate detection of target antigens and confident analysis, which leads to savings in time and increased quality of data.

The new MACSxpress® Treg Isolation Kit, human from Miltenyi Biotec facilitates both the fast and efficient isolation of regulatory T (Treg) cells from a maximum of 30 ml of fresh, anticoagulated whole blood. The MACSxpress Technique makes it possible to isolate Treg cell populations without using density gradient centrifugation and with only one labeling step. Subsequently, the cells are immediately available for further analysis or cell cultivation.

Treg cells play an important role in regulating the immune response and peripheral tolerance mechanisms. In their role as the regulators of self-tolerance in the immune system, they prevent the onset of autoimmune diseases. However, they often suppress desired reactions, such as a successful anti-tumor immune response, too. Their involvement in these immune mechanisms makes Treg cells particularly interesting for translational research.

Quick, efficient and practical: The isolation of Treg cells with MACSxpress®-Technology

Miltenyi Biotec has developed a fast process for isolating cells from whole blood – MACSxpress®-Technology. The MACSxpress Treg Isolation Kit, human, enables the extremely efficient isolation of CD4+CD25+CD127dim/- Treg cells in only two steps. In the first step CD4-negative cells are removed using the immunomagnetic MACSxpress Beads while erythrocytes are simultaneously sedimented. In the second step magnetic enrichment of CD25+ Treg cells is carried out using a MACS® Column. The marked Treg cells are held back in the column to be eluted and are then immediately available for cell cultivation or biochemical, physiological, pharmacological and morphological investigation

Studies indicate that the physiological significance of exosomes is not to be ignored. The molecular content that is passed from one cell to adjacent cells or the microenvironment via the tiny vesicles can transport important information and indeed play a role in the pathophysiology of the whole organism. This is why it is of great interest to develop methods that make it possible to experimentally characterize exosomes. Miltenyi Biotec’s new MACSPlex Exosome Kit, human, enables the qualitative as well as the semi-quantitative analysis of 37 exosome-specific surface markers. Please, read more about the new MACSPlex Exosome Kit by clicking on the link above.